thoughts (and links) of a retired "social scientist" as he tries to make sense of the world.....

what you get here

This is not a blog which expresses instant opinions on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers as jumping-off points for some reflections about our social endeavours.

So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

In the mists of Bulgaria's past

Bulgaria
has a long and proud history – reaching back 1300 years. Sofia is Europe’s
second oldest capital…..Tribes and foreign armies have ravaged its territory
for thousands of years…..

Initially
I could find only one history book but am now beginning to develop the
beginnings of a serious library….of which three books are the mainstay -- “The
Rose of the Balkans – a short history of Bulgaria” by Ivan Iltchev (Colibri
2005) – a delightful read (with good graphics) by the Dean of Sofia University
who has also produced several other books on modern Bulgarian history- Short
History of Modern Bulgaria RJ
Crampton (1987)- Historical
Dictionary of Bulgaria Raymon Detrez (the Scarecrow Press 2006) – an
amazing find (thanks to The National Library of Scotland). 900 pages of
information (of which no less than 100 pages are a bibliography of books and
articles available in the English language!!) All freely downloadable!!

One
of the main Sofia thoroughfares is Stamboulski St which I had assumed was a
reference to Istanbul (if I had given half a thought to the Ottoman Empire, I
should have known better!!).

In
fact it refers to one of Bulgaria’s most prominent 20th Century politicians
whose massive statue towers over the entrance to the Opera House -

One
book clearly worth reading on him is Peasants
in power: Alexander Stamboliski and the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union,
1899-1923 by John Bell (1977) which a review summarized usefully thus
-

The Bulgarian Agrarian
National Union (BANU) was a left-populist political party based in the rural
areas of Bulgaria. They briefly held power from 1919 to 1923, under the
charismatic leadership of Alexander Stamboliski. In 1923, the BANU government
was overthrown by a military coup. Stamboliski was arrested and tortured to
death.
Bulgarian politics almost a century ago may seem like a somewhat obscure and
esoteric subject (unless you are Bulgarian!), but the history of the BANU have
broader implications. During the 20th century, modernization have essentially
only taken two paths: capitalist modernization or socialist modernization. The
latter path eventually proved unviable, unless one counts present-day China as
still being socialist. Stamboliski and the BANU attempted a third way to
modernization: a path based on neither the bourgeoisie nor "the working
class" (actually a socialist state bureaucracy), but rather on the
peasantry. They attempted to turn Bulgaria into some kind of non-capitalist,
non-socialist system based on peasant private property and cooperatives. The
ultimate goal of the BANU was to replace parliamentary democracy with an
"estatist" organization based on the professional organizations of
peasants, artisans and workers. ("Estatist" as in based on estates.)
Apparently, this was a vaguely left-wing version of corporatism.

What makes the BANU interesting, is precisely that their commitment to the
peasantry wasn't a call for anti-modernism or Throne and Altar conservative
politics. Stamboliski was a freethinker who had studied Darwin, Renan and
Bernstein. He opposed both the Bulgarian monarchy, the military and the
nationalist wars of expansion carried out by a number of Bulgarian governments.
He wanted modernization, but a modernization that would benefit the peasantry
rather than squeeze them in the usual fashion.

Stamboliski believed that private property was legitimate as long as it was
acquired through individual or family labour. He therefore opposed big
landowners and called for a far-reaching land reform. In power, Stamboliski
used the power of the state to carry out a radical redistribution of land. The
BANU also encouraged the creation of cooperatives in agriculture, fishing and
forestry. The Bulgarian government established a virtual monopoly on foreign
trade in grain and tobacco, which led to the peasants getting higher prices for
their products. A system of virtual rent controls was instituted to ease the
burdens of the homeless after World War One. The government also set up a
compulsory labour service to mobilize workers and peasants to build new roads,
clean the streets of the towns, etc.

What this shows, of course, is that the idea of a radical redistribution of
property without using the power of the state, is utopian. No matter whether
the goal is to abolish private property, or merely to redistribute it, the
power of the state is necessary. (The only exception would be a situation of
general societal breakdown, at which point the local communities would
presumably help themselves to whatever part of "big business" happens
to be in their backyard.)
Another thing that intrigued me when reading "Peasants in power" was
the peaceful foreign policy advocated by the BANU. As already indicated,
Stamboliski absolutely opposed the foreign expansionism of the previous
Bulgarian governments and their bizarre allies, the terrorist organization
IMRO. Opposing the tide of Greater Bulgarian nationalism against Turks, Greeks,
Serbs and Rumanians must have been difficult, but Stamboliski stood his ground.
Eventually the BANU got the support of a plurality of the Bulgarian voters, who
were sick and tired of all the loosing wars. In power, Stamboliski called for a
Balkan federation and sought rapprochement with Yugoslavia, the traditional
enemy of Bulgaria in all things Balkan.

Eventually, Stamboliski and his radical populist regime were overthrown by a
bloody right wing coup. That the traditional circles in Bulgaria opposed the
BANU is hardly surprising. To them, the BANU was "Bolshevist". The
IMRO, a Macedonian terrorist organization with a substantial following in
Bulgaria, also opposed the BANU and assassinated several of its ministers
already before the coup. The IMRO wanted Bulgaria to attack the Serbs or the
Greeks (or both!) in order to regain all of Macedonia for a Greater Bulgaria, a
bizarre but typically nationalist project. Russian White Guards (stationed in
Bulgaria at the prodding of the Allies) had been implicated in an earlier coup
attempt, and resented Stamboliski's thaw with the Soviet Union.

Tragically, the BANU was also opposed by the other left-wing parties. The Broad
Socialists (Social Democrats) opposed the BANU. So did the Communist Party,
which viewed the conflicts between Stamboliski and the right-wing as an
internal "bourgeois" conflict. Only after the overthrow and murder of
Stamboliski did the Communists enter an alliance with the BANU, but their joint
uprising against the new regime failed completely, and brutal repression
followed.
For rather obvious reasons, nobody can tell how world history would have looked
like, had a "Green" path to modernization been chosen, rather than
the "Blue" or "Red" paths actually followed, or if such a
path is even feasible.
Still, "Peasants in power" is an interesting and fascinating read
about a little known episode in that world history...

- Papers of the American
Research Center in Sofia (2014); a very impressive collection of monographs on
different aspects of Balkan history eg about commerce between Brasov and Vidin
in the 15th century!!

About Me

Can be contacted at bakuron2003@yahoo.co.uk
Political refugee from Thatcher's Britain (or rather Scotland) who has been on the move since 1991. First in central Europe - then from 1999 Central Asia and Caucasus. Working on EU projects - related to building capacity of local and central government. Home base is an old house in the Carpathian mountains and Sofia

about the blog

Writing in my field is done by academics - and gives little help to individuals who are struggling to survive in or change public bureaucracies. Or else it is propoganda drafted by consultants and officials trying to talk up their reforms. And most of it covers work at a national level - whereas most of the worthwhile effort is at a more local level. The restless search for the new dishonours the work we have done in the past. As Zeldin once said - "To have a new vision of the future it is first necessary to have new vision of the past".I therefore started this blog to try to make sense of the organisational endeavours I've been involved in; to see if there are any lessons which can be passed on; to restore a bit of institutional memory and social history - particularly in the endeavour of what used to be known as "social justice". My generation believed that political activity could improve things - that belief is now dead and that cynicism threatens civilisationI also read a lot and wanted to pass on the results of this to those who have neither the time or inclination -as well as my love of painting, particularly the realist 20th century schools of Bulgaria and Belgium.A final motive for the blog is more complicated - and has to do with life and family. Why are we here? What have we done with our life? What is important to us? Not just professional knowledge - but what used to be known, rather sexistically, as "wine, women and song" - for me now in the autumn of my life as wine, books and art....

quotes

“I will act as if what I do makes a difference”
William James 1890.

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas"
JM Keynes (1935)

"We've spent half a century arguing over management methods. If there are solutions to our confusions over government, they lie in democratic not management processes"
JR Saul (1992)

"There are four sorts of worthwhile learning - learning about · oneself
· learning about things
· learning how others see us
· learning how we see others"
E. Schumacher (author of "Small is Beautiful" (1973) and Guide for the Perplexed (1977))

"The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
Bertrand Russell, 1950

Followers

der arme Dichter (Carl Spitzweg)

my alter ego

the other site

In 2008 I set up a website in the (vain) hope of developing a dialogue around issues of public administration reform - particularly in transition countries where I have been living and working for the past 26 years. The site is www.freewebs.com/publicadminreform and contains the major papers I have written over the years about my attempts to reform various public organisations in the various roles which I've had - politician; academic/trainer; consultant.